Tom's Hardware > Forum > Home Theatre > HDTV > How do I get rid of the black boxes on the top and bottom?

How do I get rid of the black boxes on the top and bottom?

Forum Home Theatre : HDTV - How do I get rid of the black boxes on the top and bottom?

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Hi I'm relatively new to HDTVs and blu ray players. I just bought a Panasonic TC-P42X1 plasma 720p tv with native aspect radio 16:9. I also have a Dell Studio Slim hooked up as a HTPC with a Radeon HD 4550 video card via hdmi. This computer came with a blu ray player onboard and I use PowerDVD to play my blu ray movies. However, when I play my movies, through PowerDVD, there are rather large black boxes running horizonal on both the top and bottom of the display. Is there any way to get rid of these?

It seems rather silly to have a widescreen tv, and then watch a movie in widescreen that shrinks it down even skinnier. I have tried different formatting options of the TV from "JUST", "Fill" and "Zoom", however these don't fully extend the display from top to bottom. Zoom is the best, however it cuts off the extreme left and right parts of the movie. Is there any way to stretch it vertically without changing the horizontal size?

I also tried to mess with the PowerDVD display settings, however it does not seem to affect the display at all. Should I try using a different blu ray playback option? Or am I limited by my TV's display settings?

Thanks,
B

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Check for a setting in Catalyst Control Center (for your graphics card) for a setting called "Underscan" and see if that helps. It was mentioned in this thread from earlier today:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] n#t1970690 (Credit where credit is due). You may need to ask where he found the setting, because I can't seem to locate it.

-Wolf sends

------------------------------ System Specs:
Gigabyte EP43-UD3L Intel Core2Quad Q8400 8 Gig RAM
NVidia Geforce 8800GTS-640/Creative X-FI Extreme Music/Dual-Boot XP-64&Server2008
Reply to Wolfshadw

Most movies are not in the 16X9 aspect ratio of your TV. That is why there are bars at the top and bottom. If you want to see the entire picture as it was in the theater you will have bars.

Reply to americanaudiophile

Try this link:

http://www.highdefforum.com/high-d [...] -bars.html

That will explain things for you. In a nutshell though you are seeing the video 'as it was filmed' The aspect ratio of video can differ widely depending on several factors. Letterboxing (bars on top and bottom) and windowboxing (bars on sides) are used to keep the proper ratio.

Reply to Bullheaded67

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How do I get rid of the black boxes on the top and bottom?

Forum Home Theatre : HDTV - How do I get rid of the black boxes on the top and bottom?